


stop your yawning

by alpacas



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Gen, Pre-Campaign, alludes to various spoilers thru the present however, nott doesn't know how magic works (yet), they're not quite used to one another yet
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-11
Updated: 2019-08-11
Packaged: 2020-08-19 09:33:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,070
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20207551
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alpacas/pseuds/alpacas
Summary: Caleb gets sick. Nott takes care of him.





	stop your yawning

**Author's Note:**

> tumblr prompt for caleb or nott getting sick and the other taking care of them.

Nott stretches, cold and cramped as she wakes. They bedded down in a meadow off the road. No fire. Trampled the grass flat, so she doesn’t have weeds in her nose or anything —

(A memory: walking in the fields outside Felderwin. A kind of blue flower with medicinal purposes. He was telling her all about it and sniffling. The pollen, you know. She was laughing a little. The way plants made him sneeze, the way he loved them so much.)

(It isn’t real.)

— but it’s all a bit damp, and Nott doesn’t like that at all.

She sits up, rubbing her cheek with her knuckles.

Caleb — the human — her com — well, Caleb, he’s still sleeping. Curled up a couple of feet away. It’s not _that_ early, but she lets him. Not like they have anywhere to be. She goes into the grass to pee, stepping carefully over the thread.

It’s been three weeks.

She keeps waiting for him to get fed up, or just tired, to say “well, we stayed together long enough,” and to leave her behind. Gets nervous around forks in roads, that sort of thing, in case it prompts the conversation. And for that matter, she should maybe do the same thing. Set him free of having a clumsy goblin freak trailing after him. It would be much easier for Caleb if he was alone, but…

She tiptoes back into the flattened grass.

Caleb is still sleeping.

Nott looks up at the sun, squinting. She’d stolen a little pack at the last town, and she goes through it, organizing her meager possessions and deciding which thing should go in which pocket. It’s soothing.

But then he’s still asleep, and Nott’s getting hungry, and she feels a sudden stab of anxiety and certainty. He’s _dead_. He was murdered in the night, and _she’s next_, and — “Caleb?” she whispers.

She reaches out to shake his shoulder —

Changes her mind. Takes a silver spoon from her pack and uses it to touch him instead. Poking at him repeatedly with the handle of it. “Caleb, are you alive?”

He grunts softly. More of an exhale.

Nott clenches the spoon tightly. Skirts around to his other side, to look at his face. He is pale and his hair is greasy on his forehead. His beard a patchy mess. His cheeks are flushed, though, and that’s new.

“Caleb?” she whispers.

She carefully touches his forehead with just the tip of her thumb. Gently as she can. So that he won’t notice.

His skin is very hot.

She closes her eyes.

Was he quiet yesterday? Sure. But he’s usually pretty quiet. At least more than she is. At least sometimes.

Did he eat dinner? Not really. But neither did she. They don’t have much.

She thinks about it. Remembering things. Fretting, too, because —

She touches his forehead again. Still hot. She shakes his shoulder. “Caleb. _Caleb_.”

Now he stirs. Blinks open gummy eyes. Frowns. Blinks. Focuses. “_Ja_, ja, was…” he mutters, mispronouncing _yeah_ and _what_ the way he does sometimes.

“You’re sick and I need to get you some water. Will your thread keep you safe until I come back?”

It takes a moment for the words to sink in, she can tell. He sits up on one elbow. There’s a smudge of dirt on his cheek, where it was pressed into the ground. “Ah — no, no, I’m not sick, I am fine, I’m sorry if I worried you,” and he’s staggering to his feet, touching his own forehead, bracing himself heavily.

She sits back on her heels.

Now what?

(A memory: a fever of her own. But the baby needs her, and the shop, and she has to go to the store, and she’s — “——, you need rest.” She remembers the words but not the voice. The ringing sound where a name once was.)

Nott bites her lip. Carefully.

She changes her mind. It’s not her — who is she to tell him what to do? What if he gets mad and says goodbye? Then what? She’ll be alone and probably in jail again.

Caleb rubs his forehead, his eyes glassy. He smiles down at her, strained. No teeth. “Now, shall we keep moving?”

She nods.

They’re heading vaguely south. Following the roads mostly, but skirting towns. Last week they’d started to get it right: going in to a town or camp or farm, doing a couple of tricks to get food, leaving before dark. Nott would prefer not to do that last part, but of course anyone who saw her hanging around would just want to kill her. She doesn’t know what Caleb’s traveling for. She’s not even sure what she is, not completely.

They’re still a day out from the next village, though. They leave the meadow and go back to the main road, start walking. Nott lets Caleb set the pace. He’s quite a bit bigger than her, of course, but for someone with such long legs he’s pretty slow. She never struggles to keep up.

Especially not today.

He walks and she walks behind him, watching his path weave slightly left and right. Not all the time. But she counts steps. Every thirty steps or so, he’ll start drifting. Correct himself.

She counts her steps. She keeps an eye out for flowers.

Because Nott is a few steps behind: when Caleb starts to swerve and doesn’t correct, staggers sideways off the road and into the weeds, she sees it right away. She trots to catch up and overtake him. “Caleb!”

She clenches her spoon in her fist, in case she needs to touch him.

He doesn’t stop, and then suddenly he does.

She can imagine his expression. Darts around to the front of him: he’s glazed and waxy and sallow. Already too pale by half, with bright red spots on his cheeks.

She brandishes the spoon. “You - uh - fuck! You need to take a break!”

To her surprise, he nods.

“Uh -“ she wishes he’d argued, so she wouldn’t have to follow up. Sees some trees in a cluster not too-too far away. “Over here. Come on. We need to get you out of the sun.”

She pushes ahead of him, and then something heavy touches her head and she lets out a stifled shriek.

“I -“ And Caleb takes his hand off her head. “I apologize. I did not intend…”

She peeks, her heart racing. A million beats per second. He’d just _touched_ her. Sure, just her head, just her hair, but what if he’d touched an ear and felt her skin? Her own fucking fault for not wearing her hood, but she’s startled. Won’t make that mistake twice —

Caleb’s expression is — wobbly. Glassy and dazed. His pupils unfocused. “Oh,” she says.

Her heart is still pounding. Her fingers shake. She doesn’t have anything to cover her hand with. “Here,” she says, trying to sound brave, offering him her hand to take.

She leads him slowly to the trees.

Shaking.

Under the stand, Caleb collapses at once, leaning against a pine trunk, heedless of sap. He summons Frumpkin into his lap and closes his eyes.

“Caleb?” she whispers.

“Ja, just a moment…”

She waits just a moment. He doesn’t stir. His breathing slows. Nott very carefully takes the thread out of his pocket. She doesn’t think she’s doing it right, but just in case, she makes a big circle around the trees the way Caleb always does. She’s sure she did it wrong, but it makes her feel better to see it there. A line there on the ground. Safety versus danger.

She sits back down to watch him sleep, carefully biting at her lip. Looking at the shiny dampness of his forehead. Those dark circles beneath his eyes.

She has a memory of a fussing baby, too miserable to sleep as he needs. She has a memory of a sneezing man, refusing to rest because he’s almost finished with this potion.

A memory, or a story she made up in her head?

If she was there, what would she do?

But it’s different. It’s different for Nott.

Isn’t it?

She doesn’t know.

She stands back up and moves to leave the clearing — all at once Caleb stirs and calls out behind her. “Nott —“

He’s trying to climb to his feet. She rushes back over and shoves him, kinda, but gently. “You’re supposed to be resting!” She bares her teeth at Frumpkin. Honestly! The cat could at least help! She pushes Caleb against the tree.

They end up weirdly at eye level, him sitting and her standing, her hands on his shoulders. She immediately gets nervous. Pulls away.

“I thought you — I thought we were leaving.”

“I’m going to get you some medicine,” Nott says. She reaches into her pocket for her poking spoon. Touches it anxiously. Frowns. “Were you spying on me with your cat?”

He blinks, looking confused. It’s weird. Caleb is never confused. He’s really very smart. “You… were not leaving?”

“To get medicine. I’ll be right back. Take a nap. Don’t worry, I put up your thread for you,” she adds, because he won’t sleep without it, she’s figured out. He looks around, goes for his pocket. Clearly bewildered.

“Ah… yes,” he says slowly.

She takes a step back. He doesn’t move. Another step. Same. “Don’t move,” she tells him, just in case he had any ideas. “Take a nap. I’ll be back in just a minute.”

He nods obediently. She stands there waiting until he closes his eyes.

When Nott comes back, Caleb’s eyes are closed, his hair sticky with pine sap, but Frumpkin’s are open on his lap. She puts a finger to her lips. The cat closes its eyes.

Nott busies herself back inside the string circle: first some chores, then using a couple of rocks to grind up the plants into a sort of paste, then scraping it into her water pouch. Adding a splash of whiskey. The sound of her shaking it furiously wakes Caleb up, his eyes still unfocused.

“Here, drink this.”

“What…”

“It’s medicine.” Yarrow and coneflower from the fields. She has memories of this. Someone sneezing as they gathered flowers, not to have, but to dry and grind and turn into medicine. She hopes Caleb doesn’t ask. She doesn’t know if she can even say the words without —

He takes a sip. Winces at the taste, the grit. Coughs. “Nott, this is…”

“You have to drink the whole thing,” she interrupts. “Also, can you start a fire?” She points to the little pile of sticks she’d assembled but not known how to light.

“I don’t think it’s safe to start a fire.”

“It’s fine, I used your string, remember?”

He considers and then half-smiles. It takes him visible effort to focus and call upon even a baby spell, a little ember of flame, but he starts the campfire and then sits back down against his pine tree.

Nott fusses over the fire until it’s steady. No different than tending a stove, this part. “You have a bed right over there,” she tells Caleb, pointing at some pine needles she’d gathered and arranged into a sort of human sized rectangle. “That sap is going to get in your hair _forever_ if you stay there.”

Caleb looks like he wants to say something. He doesn’t, which is a relief. Goes from the tree, spreads out his coat over the needles. Lies down on his back.

Nott sets their one little pot on the fire. Starts heating water, wets some bandages. She’s just about out of water now. She takes the damp bandage and folds them into a compress. “Here,” she says, putting them on his forehead. He tenses and relaxes and sighs.

“Thank you.”

“You’re quite welcome.” She’s not even as careful she doesn’t accidentally touch him. There’s something soothing about all of this. Having a ‘bedroom.’ A ‘kitchen.’ Someone to take care of.

Again.

She sees a few pine needles stuck in his hair, and absently tugs them out. He sighs, and she freezes. But all he does is turn his head slightly towards her, his eyes closed and lined and shadowed.

Terrified, with nervous fingers, she pets his hair.

Then resumes picking out pine needles.

She thinks about memories. A song someone used to sing to a little boy when he wasn’t sleeping. The first line: _behind the hill_. She mouths the words. She hums them. Caleb begins to snore.


End file.
